Watchable wildlife: Harvey Creek

Now through December, witness a unique wildlife-watching opportunity in the Columbia Highlands.

Thousands of kokanee salmon are in the midst of their annual migration up Harvey Creek, the main tributary of Sullivan Lake, where they will pair off with mates and spawn in the creek’s gravelly bed.

The creek offers plenty of year-round wildlife viewing. A healthy population of cutthroat trout swim the creek, which has also been designated key habitat for recovery of the endangered bull trout.

At the headwaters of Harvey Creek, Bunchgrass Meadows Research Natural Area protects a rare high-elevation sphagnum bog that is home to a host of wildlife, including the only population of northern bog lemmings in the region.

Conservationists have proposed that two roadless areas bordering the creek, Harvey Creek and Grassy Top, be protected as Wilderness, which would preserve the creek for its aquatic and terrestrial inhabitants.